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PrintTYPros - Special section - The beginning of Tulsa's Young Professionals
Launching our next leaders.
"This isn’t the right time.”
Those were some of the first words I received in response to my proposal to establish a young professionals (YP) organization focused on talent attraction.
The year was 2003 and the Tulsa region’s economy was feeling the effects of a downturn in aerospace, energy and telecom. In fact, at its peak, the Tulsa region had lost more than 27,000 jobs — a number second in the nation only to San Jose, Calif.
The Tulsa Metro Chamber hosted a regional higher education forum that year to discuss how to clog the “brain drain” to other metro regions. In other words, how can Tulsa keep our new graduates and young professionals from taking flight to other cities and states?
We were never going to stave off the loss of young talent unless we did something bold — and then made it something big.
With the proposal off the table, but still under discussion, in 2004 we contracted with Next Generation Consulting so that the organization would visit our community, assess the situation and make recommendations about how we could improve on the following: vitality, earning, learning, social capital, cost of living, after hours and around town.
Historically, the chamber has always identified, studied and planned for trends that will impact the business community. Other metro regions across the nation are already planning for the impending labor shortage and Tulsa needed to do the same to remain competitive.
Metro regions across the nation are facing an impending workforce shortage. Chamber Economist Bob Ball forecasted in 2004 that in the next 10 years only 1,711 will enter the workforce population and 58,132 will exit the workforce as a result of retirement. The total net decline is 56,421 in the Tulsa MSA.
Furthermore, over the next 10 years, the Tulsa MSA will experience a job growth of 53,000, leaving a gap of almost 110,000 workers.
The next step was to learn best practices from Milwaukee, a community that placed great importance on its development of a YP-friendly city. I hosted a small delegation to visit the community and we came away with this lesson: We were already behind. We knew it was critical that the creation of a YP organization be the chamber’s proactive response to a direct business need.
What many don’t know is that we originally set out to create a small task force. In fact, the first name was Tulsa’s Young Professionals Council. I selected some bright young professionals to help me create it: Andrea Myers, Billy Kulkin, Heather Pingry, Bailey Siegfried, Ryan Rex, Josh Roby and chamber staff member Sheila Curley. We met weekly at 7 a.m. to develop the strategy and recruit members to participate on a 30-member council.
That was October 2004. Three weeks later we were inundated with requests to participate and the “council” was expanded to 70. In December we had more than 150 interested. By January 2005, chamber members were asking for company designees and the number of participants was 250. We were well on our way to going beyond just a council.
I proposed that the chamber’s chairman, Tom Maxwell, chairman of Flintco, and our board of directors vote to launch and support the creation of a young professionals organization at its February 2005 board meeting. The board was excited and unanimously approved it. A leadership team was established with representatives from diverse professions and cultural backgrounds, and we also invited business and civic leaders to serve as an advisory council to provide support and guidance.
In March 2005, we hosted the “Big Brainstorm” and asked area young professionals to participate in a session to develop the strategy and focus of what we were now referring to as Tulsa’s Young Professionals. More than 350 attended and signed up to join.
When we officially launched in April 2005 with more than 500 members, we had established six work crews, a better way to describe a committee, in the following: marketing Tulsa; policy and governance; economic development; marketing, communications and events; diversity; and next generation leadership. This was a group that clearly wanted to accomplish great and meaningful things.
All this with no dedicated staff, which was a testament to what volunteers can accomplish.
When I approached our board leadership to hire a full-time director, they challenged us to “wait until we had 800 members.” Two weeks later we had already surpassed that number.
In just five short years, this group has surpassed my expectations but not my original vision. With almost 6,500 active and engaged young professionals, TYPros is now the fastest-growing group of its kind in the nation and is considered a best-practice example of an organized and sustained workforce-attraction program.
A great deal has changed in those five years, including leaders, work crews, events and even three Web sites, but one aspect has remained constant — the unique passion these volunteers have for the Tulsa region.
TYPros leadership and volunteer work crews are the force behind the accomplishments. Successes include launching a growing internship program to recruit new college graduates, diving into diversity issues, serving as ambassadors when local employers are recruiting young execs from other regions, supporting community development initiatives and, most recently, examining how the Tulsa region can sustain itself for future generations.
For years to come, these talented workers — writers, designers, engineers, architects, musicians, researchers and others — will play a key role in our long-term economic health.
Personally, Tulsa’s Young Professionals will serve as one of my most notable career accomplishments. I frequently ask the question, “What attracted you to Tulsa?” and I love hearing the response: “TYPros.”
What is a work crew? Tulsa’s Young Professionals volunteers focus on a variety of areas.
Tulsa’s Young Professionals greatly relies on the work of some 700 dedicated volunteers to create and implement initiatives; grow and retain young talent in Tulsa; and build relationships with community, business and government leaders.
With a philosophy of “work hard, play hard,” TYPros’ nine work crews are “committees” of members representing diverse professional expertise working to make an impact in a variety of areas concerning Tulsa. Crews allow members to increase involvement in the organization while assisting TYPros in reaching its overall goal.
“Young professionals are passionate about the future of Tulsa, and our crews of volunteers focus on areas ranging from business development to talent recruitment to creating an eco-friendly Tulsa,” says Michael Christian, 2010 TYPros chair. “A volunteer can dedicate as much or as little time to a crew as his or her schedule allows, and there’s a crew to suit just about every professional expertise or interest.”
Crews include:
- Ambassadors
- Business Development
- Colleges & Universities
- Community Redevelopment
- Diversity
- Government Relations
- Next Generation Leadership
- Special Events
- Sustainability
Membership in TYPros is free, and there is no cost to participate on a work crew. For more information about work crews, visit www.TYPros.org.
